Categories
People

Chip Conley

From “knowledge work” to “wisdom work”.

I was going to go in-depth on some articles I’ve been reading about the person I mentioned in my last post but I’ve been overwhelmed with some amazing insights the last couple of days that I’ve had conversing with Claude.ai. So rather than go in-depth on this person, here’s just a quick summary of him, Chip Conley.

Below is a bio that ChatGPT created for Chip that I thought was fairly accurate based upon what I’ve read about him.

Yes, I’m familiar with Chip Conley and his work, particularly his ideas around “wisdom work” as the next evolution beyond knowledge work. Chip Conley is a hospitality entrepreneur, author, and founder of the Modern Elder Academy (MEA). He has been influential in redefining aging, mentoring, and intergenerational collaboration, especially through his concept of the “Modern Elder.”

In his framework, Conley argues that while knowledge work has been the dominant paradigm in the workplace for the past few decades, the future will increasingly require “wisdom workers”—individuals who can combine knowledge with life experience, emotional intelligence, and the ability to see the bigger picture. This type of work is less about technical expertise and more about applying judgment, empathy, and the insights gained from lived experience to complex, often ambiguous, challenges.

Conley’s work is particularly relevant in the context of an aging workforce and the increasing recognition that experience and wisdom are valuable assets in navigating the complexities of modern life and work. He advocates for the integration of wisdom from older generations with the innovation and energy of younger generations, creating more holistic and effective work environments.

Conversations with ChatGPT

And here are some of the articles I’ve read about him that made me realize that he’s able to communicate really complex things but in a way that seem to make sense to the average person and without having to use abstract concepts and names that might confuse the person.

Why “Wisdom Work” is the New “Knowledge Work”

My Wisdom Principles & Practices

Cultivating Wisdom from Chip Conley’s Modern Elder Academy

7 Ways to Start Transforming from a “Knowledge” to “Wisdom” Worker (by Liz Guthridge)

Wisdom Work: Why the Modern Elder is Relevant

Midlife & Beyond: Surfing The Liminal With Chip Conley

For example, I often talk about vertical development but it’s a confusing concept for a person to grasp because its scope is so huge. But that’s also why I find it provides such an expansive, bigger picture of life and shows how how everything is interconnected. But Chip, without probably even knowing about vertical development, eases a person into understanding it by talking about a how a person encounters a mid-life crisis that deals with change and how wisdom can arise from it. So two things that the average person has probably heard about.

Now what’s amazing is that when you align what he’s talking about beside vertical development, it aligns quite nicely. That’s because the growth and development in the initial stages of development are focused on knowledge, whereas wisdom is the focus in the latter stages of growth and development. Even more so, one’s mid-life can be seen as a process of individuation towards a future, desired self-actualization of one’s self, whereby the individual is effective questioning their current assumption and beliefs (i.e. path expected by society) that has got them to where they are but they have realized it’s not enough to get them to where they want to go (i.e. desire to forge their own path).

BTW what I also find fascinating about Chip’s work, and how it aligns to my own life and the lives of others I’ve interacted with over the last decade (since Google+), is that he recognizes that there are a ton of older people out there who have an amazing amount of wisdom that can be shared with younger generations but this wisdom as a resource is not being tapped into. To really tap into the wisdom of these people though, they themselves need to recognize that knowledge itself isn’t enough and start seeing their own untapped wisdom within themselves, just as I’ve been struggling to do with myself. (BTW this is something that I began understanding when I read Carol Sanford’s book Indirect Work some years back.)

Categories
Web

I’m Back

I made a major discovery this morning in that I came across someone who’s work you could say aligns with my own laterally but who is using much simpler language to communicate a lot of the complexities of life that I’ve been using abstract metaphoric means to do so. So I’ve learnt a lot from this person already in just one day and thus I’ve decided to reactivate my website and continue with my work but I will be striving to do so using a language that will hopefully be much more simpler and accessible to the average person, if I can. I’ll provide more details on this later.

Categories
Web

I’m Done

I’ll be taking this site down indefinitely but will be keeping a local instance running on my personal computer. Basically I see no point in sharing any of my work anymore, until I can reach a point where I can actually structure it, as I work through it, so that the structure can help someone else make sense of it by navigating through it.

I’m not exactly sure how to do this yet though, be it with WordPress or potentially maybe even with Obsidian Publish in the future, but for now this seems pointless, as I just seem to be going in circles.

To clarify what I mean, the issue isn’t communicating insights into what I’m seeing in the moment. That’s easy. In effect, I can write posts all day that talk about this aspect or that aspect of my work. The issue is connecting all of these different aspects of my work up together into a bigger picture.

For example, I can intuitively see how vertical development is effectively connected to everything in life, be it gaming, politics, the world of work, whatever. That’s because how we perceive the world with our perception (thus not seeing reality directly) is the cornerstone of most of our problems in our world today. And until I can figure out a way to lead people through their inner psychological world, making them understand how their perception works and how it often creates problems for them, thus allowing them to see how everything connects up themselves, I won’t make much headway with my work.

As I’ve always said, I want to structurally build something that I feel like I can actually stand upon but as yet, I’m unsure how best to do this. So until I figure it out, I’m done.

Laters!

Categories
Identity

Focusing on the Process Itself vs The Output of the Process

I just realized something that seems so obvious now.

I’ve been diligently try to share my growth and development upon my site here because I believe that people can possibly learn from it (especially the deeper, paradoxical aspect of the journey).

But what I just realized is that a lot of my writing here is just talking about the output of my process rather than the process itself.

In other words, what are the core principles that make up my process?

Am I even aware of what my process is? Am I just intuitively winging it?

I think I’ve touched upon this before in that it’s easy to share knowledge about something, like what is vertical development, but practicing vertical development is a completely different story. And then actually trying to share that practice with someone else, who is unfamiliar with it, is even more complex.

But this is what I need to be focusing on.

Categories
Vertical Development

Gaining Freedom by Letting Go of Your Expectations, Assumptions, & Beliefs

I was reflecting last night upon a discussion I had with someone on Reddit the other day and it made realize something I had realized a while back but completely forgot about.

I think what people are really looking for in life, in terms of the problems that they’re experiencing, is a sense of freedom.

It’s like they feel like the reality of the world around them is pushing in on them and crushing them. So they’re trying to get break free from that.

The problem with this perspective though is that the default reaction to it is often striving to control others and the world, rather than feeling like you’re being controlled by others and the world.

If the person is a bit evolved though, instead of reacting, they may respond by focusing on controlling themselves and their response to what is occurring to them.

What I’m realizing in my life now is that it’s not about trying to control yourself, the world, or others, it’s about completely letting go.

So what, just let others and the world control and crush you?

No, not at all. Let go of the illusion that you’re being controlled at all which often arises from the societal expectations you’ve been programmed to believe that you need to fulfill as a part of a larger social contract.

For example, a lot of people prior to the pandemic, just accepted the way things were in terms of the concept of work. When the pandemic arrived though and it made people completely question their assumptions and beliefs about work (because there was a potential that they could die for their work), it made them completely let go of those previous expectations, beliefs, and assumptions, freeing them to work in completely new way.

Again, they didn’t let go and just accept their fate. They let go of the expectation, assumption, and belief that that was their fate.

This is what I had a difficult time trying to communicate to this person on Reddit. I think they believed I was telling them to just accept their fate. But I wasn’t.

This is why this deeper work is so paradoxical, difficult to understand, and easy to misinterpret the meaning of it, based upon where you are perceiving it from your perspective.

Actually this is poignant as well. The level of consciousness just one step beyond that of a typical “conventional” adult often seeks “freedom, autonomy, accountability, adaptability, courage, and personal growth.” This is what it is called to “individuate” and it causes a “transformation” in the way you look at your world and yourself…because you begin a quest in questioning your expectations, assumptions, and beliefs and thus learn how to let them go.

Categories
Identity

Using a Mythopoetic Language Voice As an Integration of the Head, Heart, and Hands

The other day I woke up early, got out of bed, and started creating an outline of my Life as a MMORPG framework, breaking it down into a Player’s Handbook, which embodies the Hero’s Journey, and a Campaign Guide, which embodies the stages of development that one traverses within oneself using vertical development.

I’ve done this somewhat sparingly before but what I’ve finally realized today about it, that’s different from the past, is the way I’ve created the descriptions for each point in the outline. And it touches upon this struggle I’ve had in trying to describe things using the head, heart, and hands approach of communication.

What I realized is that my difficulty in the past was in trying to keep each aspect of the communication method separate, when in fact I should integrating them all as one. And when I realized this, I realized that that is what mythopoetic language does. It’s describing the literal but by using symbolic and metaphoric means.

Deciding to see what an example of this would look like using my Life as a MMORPG framework, I asked Google’s Gemini AI to use mythopoetic language to describe life as a roleplaying game using the levels of consciousness within vertical development. Here’s what it wrote (with a few tweaks by myself). And I have to say, this is very close to what I’ve been striving for in creating a voice that integrates and encapsulates the identity of myself and the identity of my work.

In the grand roleplaying game of life, we begin as inexperienced adventurers, our consciousness a mere seedling. Each decision, every challenge overcome, and every lesson learned grants us experience. This experience doesn’t unlock flashy spells or mighty weapons, but something far more valuable – a greater awareness of life.

Just as a roleplaying game character might climb from a lowly warrior to a legendary paladin, so too do we ascend through levels of consciousness. The petty squabbles and fleeting desires of our lower levels give way to greater understanding and clarity of purpose. We begin seeing the interconnected web of existence, the ways our actions ripple outward, shaping not just ourselves but the world around us.

Obstacles, once viewed as insurmountable, become quests to be undertaken. Mistakes aren’t failures, but opportunities to refine our character, tweaking our internal stats of compassion, wisdom, and resilience. We unlock hidden dialogue options, finding the courage to converse with our own shadows and the empathy to understand perspectives far different from our own.

Leveling up in the game of life doesn’t make it easier. The challenges become more complex, the stakes higher. But with each level gained, we perceive the playing field with greater depth. We see the hidden paths, the subtle strategies the universe employs. And, most importantly, we realize the game isn’t about reaching a final destination, but the epic experience of the journey itself.

Conversations with Gemini
Categories
General

Endless Raging & Blaming

Stumbled across this on YouTube and was stunned at the great summation of the situation the authors of the book encapsulate about America right now. While it is directed at Trump and the Republicans, it doesn’t let the Democrats off the hook either though.

For example, it talks about the “white rural rage” in America which just wants someone (like Trump) to channel and direct its rage. Yet at the same time, it recognizes a lot of the rage and anger is valid as rural America is effectively collapsing because they’re being ignored for revitalization…just like how a lot of the media coverage is ignoring non-whites and not asking them how they are faring in rural America as well.

Again a great summation of the situation. The only thing though would be to not generalize and say that “all” of rural American is angry and raging. There could be a lot of areas in rural America where a lot of people, rather than raging and blaming someone else, are actually getting together and working together to create change in their own communities themselves. This is something that was mentioned that rural America should do collectively as a whole, thus creating a powerful coalition in the process that can’t be ignored anymore.

It’s an excellent idea because that’s how social change usually does occur. People from different diverse groups come together and unite as one to demand change as a whole. So instead of just raging and blaming, which just keeps you stuck within your base psychology needs, creating something creative, positive, and constructive from that anger, helps you to elevate yourself and others towards your higher psychological needs.

Categories
Hero’s Journey

Fearing to Believe, Fearing to Return

The last two decades of my life have been an almost continuous state of disbelieving and denying the transformative experience that has been happening to me.

Yet only by fully accepting, believing, and embracing this experience, owning it as part of my own life’s story and identity, can I be fully transformed by it.

This perfectly aligns with the final stage of the Hero’s Journey, whereby the hero with his boon of wisdom may actually not want to return to the ordinary world to share it with others for various reasons.

For myself though, it’s definitely this monstrous fear that this wisdom can’t be communicated to a conventional mindset because it will seem unbelievable. Thus I’ll be seen as a crazy “idiot” in turn, due to people misinterpreting the meaning of the message, seeing it as literal rather than metaphorical.

Even Gautama Buddha, after his triumph, doubted whether the message of realization could be communicated…

Refusal of the Return, Hero’s Journey

The hero may have to be brought back from his supernatural adventure by assistance from without.

Rescue From Without, Hero’s Journey

Why re-enter such a world? Why [share] the experience of transcendental bliss? As dreams that were momentous by night may seem simply silly in the light of day, so the poet and the prophet can discover themselves playing the idiot before [others]. The easy thing is to commit the whole community to the devil and retire again into [bliss]. But if some spiritual obstetrician has drawn the shimenawa across the retreat, then the work of [distilling eternal truth] cannot be avoided.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold, Hero’s Journey
Categories
Vertical Development

The Actor & Character Upon the Stage Metaphor

This is basis for the player and character within The MMORPG Called Life metaphor that I’ve created. I’m just replacing the stage that one is roleplaying upon with a MMORPG that one is roleplaying within.

Categories
Vertical Development

Collective Experiences Revealing the Player Behind the Character

There’s something that Rupert says near the end of this video that feels somehow connected to something I’ve experienced in the past.

When King Lear is miserable about his relationship with Cordelia, John Smith’s enjoying himself on stage. He’s happy. He’s not saying no to Cordelia.

So even in the midst of our suffering, the inherent nature of consciousness is shining. All you need to do is take a step back from your mind into the true nature of your awareness and immediately your happiness is restored.

Whenever I’ve experienced a deep realization or almost revelation about something, it’s almost as though the deep emotions from it are catalyzing and connecting a bunch of previous memories and experiences that I’ve had, so much so that it feels like you’ve stepped back from your life and are almost watching it cinematically on a screen as a flashback.

When this occurs, even though the separate experiences within your flashback may have been painful, sad, or frustrating ones, there’s almost this deep profound sense of joy in the overall collective experience of watching the flashback, as it reveals a deeper sense of meaning within your life that reveals who you truly are at your core.

So it’s like revealing the “player” behind the “character” that you’re roleplaying (when we see Life as a MMORPG), just as John Smith the “actor” is behind the “character” of King Lear that he is playing (when we see Life as a stage).